How could I prevent involuntary resize of pictures by Flickr?

Question

I have a borderline question again, but it's a real problem for me.

I have noticed that the original sizes (1000px) of my older pictures on Flickr are no longer available and the biggest size is now 640px. The downsized versions of the pictures are also oversharpened.

I don't have pro account.

Is this a normal practice? Does it depend on the amount views or anything else? I couldn't find any information from their help pages nor Terms and Conditions. What should I do to avoid it?

Answer

Flickr changed their behavior regarding originals for non-Pro users a few months ago. Before, if your original upload was smaller than 1280 px on the wide side, they would not generate a large (1024 px) version and show the unedited original as the large version instead. Now, they don't do that anymore.

See this thread on the Help Forum for reference.

Check more discussion of this question.